"Ladies and gentlemen, welcome aboard United Airlines Flight 930, nonstop service to London Heathrow. My name is Sarah Radcliffe, and I will be your purser on today's flight. Please pay attention to the safety video highlighting the safety features of this Boeing 777. Thank you for choosing the LESBIAN-friendly skies today."

31 December 2006

Novel sites in Berkeley

I spent the midday in and around Berkeley, going to the Unitarian Church where Sarah and Kirsten meet and fall in love, then exploring Telegraph Avenue and some of the UC campus. Dressed conservatively for the church service - much like Kirsten herself - as I walked about town, I could feel her breath and thoughts right inside me.

The entrance to the Unitarian Church. It's well north of Berkeley and on top of a steep hill. AC Transit's #7 bus stops nearby (I followed the bus route to return to Berkeley), a way for carless Kirsten to get to the church (or she could carpool with Sarah).

The service here was probably the most at-home I've felt in a church in a LONG time.A peace pole on the church grounds. Despite the multilingual pole, church members are still overwhelmingly WASP - something the members themselves want to change. I advised them that there is a lot of work to be done in my neck of woods down in Los Angeles - where conservative fundamentalist preachers own the immigrant communities.

Some left-leaning bumper stickers for sale on Telegraph Avenue. I would've loved a few myself, but that's asking for my car to be vandalized in my arch-conservative SoCal suburb. (On the flip side, any car with a pro-W bumper sticker won't last long up here in Berkeley.)

This building houses the English department. Kirsten will definitely take classes here during her college days, as I had envisioned her to be a literary type. (That's one of the few differences between her and me.)

Sather tower, better known as the Campanile. Although I couldn't go in due to the holiday week closing, this is probably where Sarah and Kirsten come for a date.